Virtual Campus VLE: http:www.teknical.com

44 Learning Management System Web-4M is a customizable multi-platform collaboration and groupware solution. Features include audio conferencing, multimedia chat facilities, instant messaging, interactive slide shows, phone, news, email, calendar, and shared documents. Web- 4M is securely accessible via a common web browser. Web-4M transforms traditional chat rooms into multimedia forums for collaboration that are integrated with mail, news, Web documents, and a distributed file system. Operating over intranets or the Internet, Web-4M features browser accessible local and global communication. Web- 4M eliminates software distribution, provides platform independence, and reduces administration.

49. WebCT has been bought by Blackboard: http:www.webct.com

WebCTs Campus Edition course development, delivery, and management tool has been designed especially for those institutions that wish to efficiently scale their online learning programs andor integrate their course tools platform with campus-wide portals and student information systems. To enable efficient scaling, the product license allows for multiple servers and includes additional systems administration support. Version 3.6 of Campus Edition includes a new global calendar function, ability to download material to a Palm handheld device, and enhanced accessibility tools to better comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

50. XanEdu: http:www.xanedu.com

XanEdu offers powerful new course resources online, in print, or in combination. Dig- ital XanEdu CoursePacks offer deep content, easy-to-use tools, and on-demand access to already copyright-cleared materials. The impressive volume and scope of resources available through XanEdu has been made possible through an exclusive content dis- tribution agreement with its parent company, ProQuest Information and Learning. Distinctive XanEdu collections encompass primary sources from the 15th century to up-to-the-minute information. The XanEdu product family also offers research tools for both students and faculty, including XanEdu ReSearch Engine, MBA ReSearch En- gine, and the new Education ReSearch Engine.

B. Free and Open Source System

Free and open source LMS is growing fast in the education and business world. Some ex- amples of free software and open source LMS are OLAT, ATutor, Bazaar, Moodle, Claro- line, and Dokeos. The Sakai Project founded by the University of Michigan, Indiana University, MIT, Stanford, the uPortal Consortium, and the Open Knowledge Initiative OKI is backed by several universities, and is available free under a BSD-like license. Most of them provide all or nearly all the LMS facilities as described before, though the user interface is not smooth in all cases for all tasks. Most open source LMSs are developed by individual or group of individuals, non-profit organizations, educational institutions, or special interest community. The community which surrounds a particular open source LMS is often the determining factor in its suc- cess. New or less popular open source LMSs might be distributed as is, leaving the users to fend for themselves. Popular LMSs however, such as Moodle, Claroline, and Dokeos